FAYETTEVILLE -- Floy Gulley hardly could have imagined when she sold her family farm to the city in 1988 hundreds of concertgoers would flock to the property six nights each summer.
Because of her generosity, the 27-acre Gulley Park has become a center of outdoor recreation on the east side of town. She and her late husband, Fred, owned the land for 42 years.
Web Watch
Expansion Effort
To learn more about or to contribute to the effort to expand Gulley Park, go to indiegogo.com/proje…, or find the “Friends of Gulley Park” page on Facebook.
Parks and Recreation officials estimate 1,000 people on average attend each performance in the annual Gulley Park Summer Concert Series. The park's pavilion and gazebo were reserved more than 400 times last year. And about 700 people registered for this year's Cow Paddy Run benefiting the Fayetteville Public Education Foundation, according to event organizers.
Those figures don't include the countless children who play on the park's playgrounds or the suburban mothers who walk the 0.85-mile trail around the park each morning.
"It's definitely one of our busiest parks," said Alison Jumper, park planning superintendent.
"It's one of our few parks with just expansive, open, unprogrammed green space," Jumper added. "I think people enjoy that about Gulley Park. It has kind of a pastoral setting."
If a group led by lifelong Fayetteville resident Wade Colwell gets its way, the park's footprint will expand.
Colwell, who grew up swimming in a pond on the Gulley farm and fishing in Niokaska Creek, was instrumental in convincing Floy Gulley to sell her land to the city for $110,000 in the late 1980s.
Colwell wants the city to buy 11 acres on the northeast side of the park from Mary Lou Dunn. Dunn, 83, and her late husband, Allen "Sonny" Dunn, bought the land in 1960 from the Gulleys.
The land has two houses and a shop building on a little more than an acre along Old Wire Road. Dunn lives in one house, and her daughter, Sherry, lives in the other. The remaining 10 acres is pasture.
After more than 50 years on the land, the Dunns are ready to move.
Sonny Dunn died nearly two years ago. Sherry Dunn's son, Joshua, died in September, leaving just Mary Lou and Sherry in the two houses.
"It's a lot to keep up with," Sherry Dunn said. "Mom is ready to move out."
It's unclear what will happen with the property if the city buys it.
Colwell said he'd like to see it kept as mostly pasture, with a grass or pine needle cross-country track around the perimeter.
"In my mind, the best use of that property would be a shaded, soft-surface trail for walking and running," Colwell said.
Others have mentioned a dog park, bocce ball courts or a splash pad for kids.
Sherry Dunn said the nearly 1,200-square-foot shop, which has electricity, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning, could be used as a meeting and event space.
"I don't think the city has anything like that -- especially in a city park," she said.
Connie Edmonston, Parks and Recreation director, said, if the city buys the property, public meetings will be held before staff members, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board and the City Council determine how the land would be used.
The Dunns say they've had offers from several developers since they put the property up for sale earlier this year. They wouldn't provide any detail about the potential buyers.
The land and houses are listed on Bassett Mix and Associates' website for $1.2 million.
Mary Lou Dunn said Wednesday she would sell the land to the city for $1 million. She said her husband and Fred and Floy Gulley would have liked to have the land used as a city park.
"I can't afford to just give it to (the city)," Mary Lou Dunn said. "I wish I were in a position where I could."
City Council members were noncommittal when Colwell presented the idea to them in April.
It's unclear how city officials would come up with the money to buy the land.
Dunns' offer is just more than $91,000 per acre, about 10 times what the city paid in March for 328 acres atop Mount Kessler. The city and Walton Family Foundation each paid $1.5 million for the Mount Kessler land. The Fayetteville Natural Heritage Association also committed to raising $300,000 to help defray the cost.
The Mount Kessler land is in a remote, rugged area that's not as conducive to development as the Dunns' pasture, which is surrounded on three sides by single-family houses and has utilities in place, including main sewer lines running north to south on the property.
A 13.6-acre parcel that didn't have structures on it just over a mile away, near Old Wire Road and Mission Boulevard, sold for $825,000, or about $60,700 per acre, in 2012, according to Washington County property records. Buffington Homes of Arkansas is building a 53-lot subdivision called the Cottages at Old Wire on the site.
Bassett Mix and Associates, in a letter to the city, valued the Dunns' two houses and wood shop at $364,000. Mary Lou Dunn said she didn't want to sell the houses and pasture separately.
"I just want to get it done," she said.
Colwell said the city could reduce its costs by buying the entire 11 acres and selling the houses.
The Parks and Recreation Department is paying $3,500 to Reed & Associates to appraise the property. Edmonston said the appraisal will be completed later this month.
The Parks Development Fund has $700,000 set aside to pay for Gulley Park improvement in 2015, including replacing the hard-surface trail and installing trail lights, building a pavilion and restrooms and adding parking. Edmonston said those improvements would be delayed for several years if the money is used to buy the Dunns' property.
Mayor Lioneld Jordan said he's not in favor of using some of the $5.5 million available in the city's general fund reserve. Jordan said once that money's spent, it's gone. He said he'd like to see contributions from the group rallying to expand Gulley Park before hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money is spent on the purchase.
"Do I want that piece of property? Absolutely," Jordan said. "But it all comes back to how do we fund it."
As of Friday morning, Colwell and his volunteer group, called Friends of Gulley Park, had raised $4,530. The goal is $280,000 by Aug. 4. Colwell said he'll continue to seek large donations from philanthropists throughout Northwest Arkansas.
"The idea is to have money to go to the city with, so they can't say 'No,'" he said.
"I'm looking at the future; not just now," Colwell said. "We're only going to be glad we did this."
NW News on 07/12/2014